


A Sleepy Wonderland

by Lonewritersclub



Category: Alice in Wonderland (Movies - Burton), Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Genre: AU, Asylums, Back to underland we go, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Tarrant visits the otherworld, Where did Alice go though?, becomes Ichabod
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27166817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lonewritersclub/pseuds/Lonewritersclub
Summary: Ichabod Crane is not mad. However, after he reaches Underland, he might finally believe the doctors who tell him so.
Relationships: Ichabod Crane/Alice Kingsleigh, Tarrant Hightopp/Alice Kingsleigh
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

Ichabod Crane was not a man of madness. Despite his odd trinkets and bright intelligence sometimes misunderstood for near witchcraft and folly. Ichabod Crane did not belong in an asylum.

Yet there he was. 

A high glass palace ceiling stretched out beyond his gaze, as though he was sleeping in an indoor garden. But the only thing worth seeing were those grey clouds passing the rainy London sky. And none else could he bear witness to either, for his wrists and ankles were both strapped down by pieces of tought fabric to the creaky metal framed bed he had been, without any consultation, set to lay on. And so, as he looked pass the glass ceiling planes and into the blue afternoon, Ichabod's mood, was too, very much blue. 

In the evening, a man in a white long coat came by his bed. He barely spoke a word to Ichabod, although Ichabod tried to reason him with well and full thoughts of logicality. Instead, he bared Ichabod's arm and pierced his pale skin with a sharp needle and injected the suspicious looking liquid inside it within Ichabod's veins, and slowly but gradually, his mind.

When Ichabod later woke up, he thought he had never fallen asleep. He thought to himself he must be dreaming still. However, the grassy ground on which he found himself did feel real if too much so. 

His hands he raised to his eyes to rub the tiredness away from them, stopped mid-air in front of his face. Ichabod was quite aware of his own paleness, but enough was enough. His hands were positively white, as he gazed upon them in shock, with the tips of his fingers tinted bright orange. An astounished giggle erupted from his throat and it shook him to his very core in greater depth. The light and high tone that had emitted from him could have not truly been his to voice? Ichabod coughed one or two times as he stood up on two shaky though nimble feet and slowly tried to come to his bearings. 

The view that stretched in front of him was out of a fairytale with its two feet purple and pink mushrooms and strange looking trees. Ichabod then felt he was finally ready to hear the asylum's doctors for he could now too undoubtedly admit that he had officially lost his mind.

But since there seemed for him that there was nowhere else to go than to follow the path of sandy gravel that snaked about the curious forest, follow it he did. Carefully he placed his steps one, two, three in front of the other as he in pure interest and with no knowledge of else wandered in the fascinating woods with little wooden horse swings flying in the air. 

After what had felt like hours and at the same times as seconds of walking, he came to a small clearing that was washed in a yellow sunlight although before it had been shadowy purplish in the forest.

In the middle of the clearing stood a tall but narrow table, decorated to the T with different delicious assortments of cakes, biscuits, tarts and whatnot. Everywhere on top of the white linen laid across the table were teacups and teapots of different colors, styles and sizes. And around the table were many empty chairs and so was the funny looking grand armchair at the other end of the long table. 

Empty they were, except for two characters seated around it drinking tea and speaking gibberish to each other or to themselves. A mean appearing small mouse with a spike in its hand and nervous looking grey hare wearing a blue coat of sorts. 

_Oh yes_ , Ichabod thought as he closed in on the apparent tea party to seek advice from the two, _I have definitely gone mad._


	2. Chapter 2

They woke up to his presence then: the hare and the mouse, and stopped they did to stare at him in silence. Ichabod felt nervous then. He usually wasn’t around animals but these ones, despite their colourful outfits, were rather unnerving considering the circumstances. As were the circumstances themselves.

Then the mouse shouted out in delight, throwing up the spike it was holding it its hand.

“It’s the Hatter! He’s back!” The hare yelped in surprise and threw a teacup to the bright green ground, shattering it.

Ichabod frowned and looked behind himself. He was by himself and so the mouse must have addressed him. Only then did he also realize what a tall hat he was wearing on top of his head and the odd clothes on his person. And his hair… was curly and orange?

“He’s finally returned, the sun is up! The tea has been brewed, the sugar cube has melted… the sugar cuuube”, the hare muttered and then trailed off ogling at the big white sugar cube in its paw.

Ichabod advanced towards the table, wishing to take a seat despite the strange company, for his feet had started to tire from all the walking. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. My name is Ichabod Crane” he said and was stunned to hear again the changed tone of his voice. It sounded as though he had a problem with pronouncing his ‘s’ but in the gentlest way.

That allowed the mouse to have the time to pull on his finger and lead him to the armchair to sit him down. Ichabod frowned in deeper confusion, especially when the feel of the cushioned seat felt terribly familiar to him. _Has he been here before?_

The hare laughed in a crazed jumbled manner and poured tea into its mouth a great amount. “Hatter’s gone mad, has he, eh? Has gone mad as Hatter! AHAHAH!”

Ichabod swallowed down a funny feeling in his throat. But know he did still not what the hare was on about.

The mouse stood in front of him, on top of one of the grand delicate porcelain teapots, and looked at him, waiting for a response.

“Where is Alice?”

Now that was a name that rang a bell. Ichabod did know of an Alice. Where she had gone, was a mystery even to him. A mystery that he had a feeling had ended him up in the asylum in the first place.

“I really rather don’t know”, Ichabod admitted. But then another voice, sophisticated and low, suddenly sounded off from above the armchair and they all turned their heads up to see who was talking.

“But thankfully I do”, the purple striped cat quipped in a self-satisfied manner from where it was perched on top of the great tall armchair. “And with her recovered, the Hatter can be discovered as well”, it added and stared right at Ichabod with its huge knowing eyes.

Ichabod swallowed again, uncomfortably so, and turned to look at the full teacup already placed in front of him. Steaming thing it was.

“I think I could have cup of tea right about now”, he said to himself quietly and took a ginger sip of it. Wild raspberries flowed across his tongue. The talking animals just stared at him in quietness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you're liking this story! And tell me which flavor of tea you like the best :) I like blueberries.


	3. Chapter 3

“The Hatter doesn’t know he’s Hatter?” the mouse asked incredulously staring at Ichabod questioningly. The hare let out a crazed laugh and dunked its head into a teapot.

“He appears to have forgotten himself after his extended stay in the Otherworld”, the striped cat suggested in its contemplative way and settled itself on the table in a puffy pile of fur.

Ichabod put his teacup down gently and looked at the strange animal trio almost embarrassedly. The reason for it was unknown to him however. Why should he care if the animals thought he was somebody else when he himself knew that he was Ichabod, and that was the end of it.

Yet somehow he still doubted himself as much as he doubted his sanity for even seeing such odd things before his eyes. If he truly was himself, he shouldn’t be here at all. However, if he wasn’t himself, suppose he could be anywhere.

An amusing looking bird with a giraffe nose for a beak flew over them, knocking over a cupcake or two and the hare yelled out, pulling at its long ears in tension. Ichabod couldn’t help but give out a giggle, one that surprised even him. The others glanced back to him from the fallen over pastries. Ichabod coughed his throat straight in further embarrassment. He seemed to be losing control of himself. To what, he wasn’t sure. The others didn’t seem to think so, though.

“He’s slowly becoming more and more himself”, the cat mused in agreement with the others thoughts and stood up onto its little legs before floating over to Ichabod with a worried look in its huge eyes.

“And he’ll continue to become himself until he’s too much himself it’ll drive him truly mad. He’ll be himself without understanding it so. A person and a mind in dreadful detach. An appalling state for wearer of such a big wonderful hat”, the cat added with sadness lacing its tone. Ichabod frowned at it in confusion.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I am perfectly aware of who I am. To me this all just seems rather wondrously odd, so it must be a dream. All I need to do is wake up. But since the doctor apparently induced my slumber, I can do not much but wait for it to be over. Until then, I’d rather not have you think anything rash of me”, Ichabod told them decidedly and stood up from the armchair in fast succession.

“Thank you for the tea but I must be going now. This is all tiring me quite. I’d like to find a more peaceful place to rest”, he said, for he was honestly feeling a bit faint in the head, and took the next winding road away from the tea party and into the funny coloured woods again.

“Hatter!” the mouse shouted out after him but that was not Ichabod’s name and so he did not stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There he goes again. I wonder where Alice has gone. By the way, I've changed my mind, I like blueberry tea but I prefer red berries tea even better.


	4. Chapter 4

Ichabod wandered and wandered on deeper and deeper into the strange woods. He tried to forget about the manic tea party he had just left and find a soft space to take a rest in. Truly, his head was feeling incredibly heavy and all of these oddities only made him increasingly overwhelmed.

His feet trembled against the grassy ground by the time he finally found a spot underneath a tall oak tree, or so it seemed. The branches were like poetry, twisting in curves of cursive writing and painted as if in ink against a purple pink sky above, the trunk the colour of snow white.

Ichabod sat down and laid himself out, back resting against the surprisingly warm trunk. Oh, it was comfortable there, shockingly so. And thus, Ichabod graciously pressed his eyelids closed and breathed out a satisfied sigh. It did not take long at all, until Ichabod was soundly asleep.

In his slumber, Ichabod dreamed of a girl in fair blonde, clothed in glistening silver armour. She stood on top of high castle ruins, windswept but proud. The dark clouds broke apart behind her and a new brighter day began.

Ichabod found himself smiling at the sight. The girl, he thought, he knew. But how? It was only a dream after all.

Then, someone tugged on his arm and as he went to look down, he found a brown dog to his side.

“What is it?” Ichabod asked and was not surprised at all when the dog answer him back.

“This is not a dream.”

However, the talking dog couldn’t have been anymore wrong, Ichabod thought, as when he opened his eyes, he was resting on a bed of steel and creaky wires. The sky had begun to clear out behind the glass dome of a ceiling and the sun was shining in his eyes. Ichabod went to raise his arm to shelter his vision but it was tugged back down by the soft strap wrapped around his wrist.

He frowned to himself and looked around in confusion.

The asylum. He was back on the ward.

It had all been a dream. The tea party, the forest and the girl in armour.

Of course.

_Don’t leave now_

Just a dream.

Then, all of the sudden, the double doors at the other side of the room burst open. A young woman in a long red coat and with wild blonde hair flowing past beside her pretty searching blue gaze entered the room. Her eyes wandered throughout the room in a frantic manner, someone or some people clearly hot on her heels. When her intense gaze came to him, she stopped and simply stared. Her pink lips parted in amazement and as soon as that moment in time had passed, she was running straight towards him on the bed.

She curled over him, her hands cradling his face softly, without hesitance, with familiarity of who knows. Ichabod gasped as the girl then simply leaned in and pressed their foreheads together and closing her eyes with relief.

“I found you”, she whispered in what could be described as a praise to the Gods. Ichabod could not do much at than allow the odd woman do as she pleased for he was still restrained to the bed. But further confuse her of who he was, he did not need to do.

“I’m sorry… I don’t know who you are”, Ichabod admitted to her believing she should not know him thereby either.

She leaned backwards then, with worry and disbelief taking place on her subtle features, her long blond curls dancing past her shoulders to rest on Ichabod’s chest. She only regarded him in interested appraisal a moment longer until she uttered one single word.

“ _Curious_.”

Then she was quick to start untying him from the bed.

“We must go quickly now. They think you mad. You should have never come here”, she muttered while she had got him loose. Then with unrestrained strength she pulled him to his feet from the bed and started dragging him behind herself towards the other side of the room just as wardens and nurses rushed through the double doors.

“Grab them! Do not let her or the patient escape!”

Ichabod was quite ready to give himself up, he had never been much for resisting authority, but the woman had an iron fist grabbing his hand and she was not about to let go. Who was she, Ichabod wondered it with deep profoundness.

She took them to a spiralling staircase and they ran down the steps into a common area where the calm patients were entertaining themselves among the overlooking nurses. The woman was not fazed by them even as they started shouting and Ichabod had never felt so ashamed and terrified at the same time in his life. The wardens and nurses were still hunting after them, but then the girl took a sharp turn and through a door they went which she shut behind them quickly in concession. She had finally let go of his arm and he looked around himself in panting wonder.

They had entered the doctor’s lounge area. Mahogany wood and expensive looking books all about them. On top of the stone fireplace was a tall mirror placed inside golden frames. At their left, were glass doors leading to a balcony. They could escape through there. If Ichabod so wished to. And wished he did, only he knew he would in short term be rediscovered and put to an institution once again.

Loud banging started from behind the door to the lounge but the woman had already barricaded it with a heavy armchair. She swiftly turned around on her heels to face him.

“Alright, let’s go”, she said and started walking to the fireplace and grabbing a chair nearby it to take it just under the mirror. Ichabod frowned, twisted his hands in front of himself with concern, but then finally gulped down his anxiety and wariness for the woman in decisiveness and spoke once more.

“I’m sorry, madam, I really am, but I honestly do not believe we know each other. You must mistake me for someone else. I appreciate you releasing from those restraints but I don’t think I’m fit to leave any time soon. The doctor will need to sign a release form first or otherwise I’ll be thrown back here once they find me on the outside.”

The woman halted her movements for a second once more to really look at him.

“Oh _Hatter_ , you’ve really gone bonkers this time, haven’t you”, she sighed in pity. She stood up the chair and reached out her arm to him. Ichabod was truly confused.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My name is Ichabod Crane”, he found himself repeating quietly and wondered why it is he is repeating himself.

“Take my hand. Please. I’ll take you home”, the woman said, wiggling her fingers to him to come forward. Unconsciously his legs followed her guidance.

“Who are you?” Ichabod asked, out loud this time. When she answered, the response felt awfully familiar to him.

“I’m Alice”, she spoke softly. “And I’m taking you home.”

And before Ichabod knew it, the girl had grabbed him by the hand again, and against all odds, pulled him through the golden framed mirror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is snowing outside!

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to find a crossover for this sort of a thing, and I never search for crossovers usually, yet I found nothing so I suppose I have to write this story myself. You're welcome to join the ride if you so wish :)


End file.
